person Trish Hopkinson, two poems

Trish Hopkinson has authored three chapbooks and has been published in several anthologies and journals, including Tinderbox, Pretty Owl Poetry, and The Penn Review. You can follow Hopkinson on her blog where she shares information on how to write, publish, and participate in the greater poetry community at http://trishhopkinson.com/.

~

CARAMBOLA

glowing golden
from my tongue
against verdant orchard
so ready-just
your slight sway
my touch loosens
heavy with nectar
you from the stem
your sweetness
am i greedy
barely held in—warm
as the charmed
as lemon beeswax
raven who filled
in polka-dot sun
its belly with you? or worse,
i imagine your passage
the brother who took
from fruit to seed
more than he could hold,
seed to fruit, the leaf
then fell, dying
& the root
from wing to sea?
pushing you
such myths nod
into lavender bells
at your ancient
the pollen calling
relation to Eden
for its lovers—the bees’
my newness
footprints dust ovary
& inconsequence
& ovule—longing
i should slice
subsides
you tenderly
am i selfish
with my knife
for wanting you?
but instead
my hand places fingers
i carve you
& thumb in each
with my teeth
of your pentagram
& juice drips
folds, supple
from where
& tempting
lips form
tart of summer
my brute
quench of rain
mouth
mere moments

~

ASCENT

I leave the blood nest; ancestry does not warrant,
association does not bind me to breast

or covert—sparrows tumble from my throat,
let loose—flutter around the room,

peck the floorboards for seeds, flick their beaks
and bony tongues at gnats swarming

a bowl of softened pomegranates. I clasp
my jaw and refuse to let them

back in, refuse any acceptance—not even a sparrow
falls to the ground without some godly consent

of too many years flown. I leave them all
behind the bolted door to perish.